Guatemala Xinabajul San Pedro Necta

La Libertad has gleaming green apple brightness, a structured cup profile consisting of caramelized sugar, cinnamon/raisin toast, coffee cake, and berry accents (especially in City+/Full City roasts). City to Full City+. Good for espresso.

San Pedro Necta is one of several small towns perched on the spine of a mountain in Huehuetenango. The area has produced some really nice coffees, but the opportunity finds its way to large farms who can market their coffee and enter competitions rarely spreads to their small-scale neighbors of this area and their neighbors. It's been 7+ years since we partnered with locals to try to reward these small farmers with better prices than they had ever seen, if they could grow and process coffee that meets our ideas of quality. In the past the only options to local farmers was to sell the "coyotes" who drive around offering cash for coffee, or to sell the bigger farms and mills in the zone. But neither rewarded the farmer with a better price for quality coffee. With our "Proyecto Xinabajul" we're working to change that, and have grown from importing a single container ship full of coffee in our first year, to nearly 5 this past season.

The dry fragrance of San Pedro Necta has nice sweet smelling dry fragrance, allusions to ginger snap cookies at City roast level with a mix of dark sugar and subtle spice notes, and Full City roasts shift to strong bittersweetness that is accompanied by wafts of raisin and cola. There's a nice range of smells here, and adding hot water ushers in more roasted nut type smells in the light roast, whereas bittersweetness remains resolute at Full City, and breaking through the crust gives off an incredible smell of dark chocolate with dried fruit accents. As a cup, my City+ roast San Pedro Necta showcased flavors of toasted muscovado sugar and roasted almond, vanilla and cinnamon powder accents in the finish. Acidity is on the 'slight' side, but still offers a soft structure ala Red Delicious apples. There's a chocolate undertone too that flourishes when you reach Full City roast level. A nice, rich flavor of fine Dutch drinking cocoa comes through in darker roasts and hangs on long after the final sip. This is a great drinking coffee, and one that fits the daily drinker roster - sweet, balanced, bodied, and without any 'over the top', top notes. San Pedro Necta also makes a great dual-use coffee with SO espresso shots displaying rich chocolate tones and inky mouthfeel in the Full City roast range.